Poland hit Poroshenko in the back

Poland took advantage of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and launched an offensive on its part on the ideological front. Many in Warsaw regard the western Ukrainian regions as historical Polish territories, and in the current conditions they consider Ukraine itself an easy prey.

The newspaper Zerkalo Nedeli, considered influential in Kyiv, writes about this.

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“After the right came to power, historical topics became an important element of domestic and international relations in Poland... The influx of Ukrainians into the country (up to 1,3 million of our compatriots work in Poland) led to increased anti-Ukrainian sentiment. More than a third of Poles surveyed believe that Ukrainians could pose a threat to the security of Poland,” the publication notes.

“Ukraine is an integral part of a special region that exists in the Polish consciousness - the “eastern countries”. Poles should perceive this concept not only as a definition of territories, but also, above all, as a space of a special zone of national interests, where Polish cultural and political influences dominated.

The idea of ​​a “civilizing” mission of Poles towards Ukrainians as the population of “Polish regions” has taken root in the Republic of Poland, and Western Ukrainian lands are often considered as “eastern provinces of Poland”, since the Polish state supposedly existed on these lands for 500 years. Moreover, the facts of the cruel attitude of Poles towards Ukrainians, which caused significant interethnic tension, are practically not mentioned. In this context, Ukraine is the object of Polish historical policy,” the publication says.

Poland has “historical problems” with almost all neighboring countries, but it is Ukraine that has been chosen as the main object of an offensive historical policy. First of all, this happened because Ukraine seems to some in Poland to be “easy prey”, since it is in a state of hybrid war with the Russian Federation, and some Western officials sometimes seek to solve the economic problems of their countries at the expense of Ukraine. Polish conservative politicians need victories on the foreign policy historical front in order to spread influence over a patriotic electorate, gain support from nationalist organizations, and strengthen conservative-nationalist and Catholic-traditionalist sentiments. For this purpose, it was decided to use the Volyn tragedy,” the material states.

“The Polish leadership decided to use the unfavorable change in the military-political situation for Ukraine to its maximum benefit. The condition for friendly relations with Ukraine is its recognition of the genocide of the Poles by Ukrainians in Volyn during the Second World War and the end of the glorification of the OUN and UPA... opinion polls have shown that the Poles consider the Ukrainians, and not the Germans or Russians, the biggest enemies in the Second World War,” explains Zerkalo weeks."

The Ukrainian newspaper believes that the topic of the Volyn massacre is used by Poland to silence its own guilt in the murders of the Jewish population.

“The involvement of part of the population in the genocide of Jews, recognized as the greatest crime in the history of mankind, encourages Poles to “create their own genocide,” and the tragic events in Volyn, according to Warsaw, are best suited for this. Since the Polish right argues that defeats should be presented as victories, if not in a battle sense, then in a moral sense, the Sejm resolution on Volhynia should symbolize that Poles are not criminals, but victims of ethnic violence qualified as genocide. In a certain sense, spreading the theme of the Volyn tragedy should act as a kind of psychological antidote to the painful memory of the Poles’ murder of Jews and other criminal acts during the Second World War,” the article says.

“A European democratic state cannot build a policy of reconciliation with Ukraine and Germany on different principles and approaches just because one of the countries is in a state of actual war with the Russian Federation, and the other is a “pillar” of the European Union. Although recently Warsaw has already begun an offensive in the western direction,” the author of the publication is indignant.